


Arrangements

by misura



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 04:24:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19716157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: In which Peter has a nice cup of tea with the owner of a bookshop.





	Arrangements

_A courtesy call,_ Nightingale had called it, and so off I went, to visit a bookshop in Soho.

The shop was well-lit, welcoming and full of the types of books you wouldn't want to show your mother - or anyone else, really. It made me wonder if Nightingale had ever visited here, before I realized what a mistake that was and instead wondered if perhaps I had the wrong address.

It turned out that I did, which was a relief to me. The young man behind the counter did not seem to have any particular feelings on the matter. Perhaps he was used to it by now.

Upon closer examination, the shop next-door to Intimate Books did indeed sell books. At least, there was a small sign in the window proclaiming 'books', not specifying further.

An equally small sign on the door proclaimed the shop to be 'open' in very small print, so I went inside. (I later discovered that, when turned the other way round, the sign became quite large and easy to read, actually.)

There were no other customers, which did not surprise me.

What did surprise me were the _vestigia_. Cocoa and old paper and ink and sunshine and the sound of ducks and a very faint sensation of something slithery.

 _A-ha,_ thought I, pleased to have figured out what I was doing here without Nightingale having to spell it out for me. Clearly, this was a magical bookshop. Obviously, I was here to pick up a rare and ancient volume that had to be transported to the Folly without falling into the wrong hands.

Before I could embarrass myself by saying any of this out loud, the shop owner-or-assistant asked me whether I was here to buy a book, which would have been a bit silly if he'd been expecting someone to come and pick up an order. He sounded rather combative about it, too.

"Yes?" said I, reasoning that surely this would calm him down.

He did not look any calmer, so I added that Nightingale had sent me, actually, just to say 'hello', and that got the trick done. He even went so far as to offer me a cup of tea.

I accepted.

Five minutes of casual conversation later, I decided that the shop owner was (1) gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide, (2) not an idiot and (3) almost certainly not a fictional character from a certain novel they'd recently turned into a TV-show, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

The question, 'are you an angel?' rose to my lips before slinking off to the same place as 'might you happen to know anything about a group of jazz vampires?'.

I did wonder about the exact nature of his relationship with Nightingale. Not, you understand, to the point where I came right out and asked, but I was tempted a couple of times.

Had anyone bearing a striking resemblance to David Tennant walked into the store, my resistance might have crumbled to non-existence, but fortunately, aside from a young couple who turned out to have mistaken the entrance, our conversation remained uninterrupted.

"Please do tell dear Thomas to drop by himself some time," said the shop owner, before sending me on my merry way. "And do let me know if I can take any more material off your hands."

I assured him I would convey his invitation to 'dear Thomas', and that was that.

"A Principality, I believe," was Nightingale reply to my question as to the exact nature of the person with whom I'd just had a nice tea and chat. "But really, you shouldn't take this sort of thing too seriously."

By all means, I thought, let's not take the existence of actual angels too seriously.

I inquired whether we might expect Mr Principality to aid us in our future endeavours to keep the British public safe.

Nightingale said we probably shouldn't, which did not surprise me, on account of already having exceeded my daily limit. He did turn out to have heard of Terry Pratchett, if not of Neil Gaiman.

"I think Miriam might have mentioned him once," he said. "All sounded a bit too fantastic for my tastes, to be honest."

I managed not to point out loud the logic or lack thereof of a wizard considering Sir Pterry's works 'a bit too fantastic' for his tastes, but only because I knew it would get me another lecture on the nature of magic.


End file.
